WCP2705

Letter (WCP2705.2595)

[1]1

AUCKLAND CASTLE

BISHOP AUCKLAND.

Nov[ember]. 12th 1895

My Dear Sir,

Allow me to thank you for the copy of your address.2 No scheme is more attractive[?] than ‘Home Colonisation’. I followed Mr. Mills[’]3 experiment at Starnthwaite4 with deep interest and made a very modest subscription towards it; but its history has not been [2] encouraging if I may judge from a correspondence in one of the Labour journals which was sent to me. These are movement is beset by two[?] difficulties which at present seem to be insuperable. There is a want of leaders; and it appears to be impossible to turn people who have experienced the excitements of the town back to the country. Still I must look hopefully on the endeavour. I have often [3]5 pleaded that some of our retired officers should lead Colonies. But all my experience, as I was saying last week, convinces me that spiritual forces alone were adequate to overcome the evils which we deplore.

Y[ou]rs most faithfully | B F[?] Dunelm6

A.R. Wallace Esq[uire] LL. D. FRS7 &c &c

I omitted to enclose [4] an address which explains generally my own view[.]

1
The page is numbered 177 in pencil in the top RH corner.
2
Probably Wallace, Wallace, A. R. (1895) President's address: Suggestions for solving the problem of the unemployed. Land Nationalisation Society Tract No. 64. London: The Land Nationalisation Society, pp. 1-20.
3

Mills, Herbert Vincent (no dates found) British Unitarian minister and utopian. In 1886 he published Poverty and the State and in 1888 was asked

to give evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on the

Poor Laws. He founded the Home Colonisation Society in 1887 and founded the Starnthwaite community near Kendal in 1892.

4
In 1892 the Home Colonisation Society founded by Herbert Vincent Mills bought a small farm at Starnthwaite (near Kendal), where twenty-two settlers worked and lived by 1893. Later on, arguments resulted in 14 settlers being expelled. In 1900 Mills abandoned the project and handed the land over to the Christian Union for Social Service.
5
The page is numbered 178 in pencil in the top RH corner.
6
Westcott, Brooke Foss (1825-1901). Biblical scholar and theologian, served as Bishop of Durham from 1890 until his death. He was a staunch supporter of the co-operative movement and to all intents and purposes, founder of the Christian Social Union. The bishop's signature is not clear, but perhaps appears in the form normally used by him, the initials of his first names with the customary abbreviation of the Latin form of the name of the diocese, Dunelm[ensis], for [bishop] of Durham.
7
Wallace was made Honorary LL.D. (Doctor of Laws) from Trinity College, Dublin in 1882 and F.R.S. (Fellow of the Royal Society) in 1893.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2705.2595)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2018-08-15]

Please cite as “WCP2705,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2705